Wednesday 30 December 2015

My Favourite Albums of 2015 (Part II): The Ones That (Almost) Got Away


In the second part of the year-end list nobody asked for, I’ll be focusing on the bands and/or artists I have either just started listening to or didn’t even know existed prior to 2015. I’m going to be honest here – most of these were discovered thanks to Spotify playlist recommendations. Yes, I know, I know – streaming services are the devil. Blah, blah, blah. I get it, I really do. Yet, I have little doubt that, if not for these recommendations, I would never have given these albums a shot in the first place. And that would be a massive bummer.

I also should note that the albums listed below are only a select few of the many I liked this year. The ones chosen are simply those that have stuck with me the longest. 
 
Anyhoo, enough rambling. Let’s just move onto what matters  - the music itself. If you like the sound of any of these, I recommend you give ‘em a listen. I doubt you’ll be sorry.
 
 
Ezra Furman – Perpetual Motion People
 
 
 
I’ll start with Ezra Furman’s Perpetual Motion People because it is the only album on this particular section of the list I didn’t discover via Spotify. Rather, I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to review the album for Aphra Magazine a month before it’s official release. And boy, was it a revelation. I won’t go into why, as I’d just be repeating myself (for my specific thoughts, you can check out the review here). All I’ll add is this - Mr. Furman is an infuriatingly underrated artist – one I am shocked isn’t making more appearances on the endless parade of ‘year-end’ album lists.
 
If you haven’t given this record (or any of his previous records, for that matter) a spin, I implore you to do so. If your taste buds are not located squarely within the depths of you anus, you should get a kick out of it.
 
 
 
Royal Headache – High
 
 
 
Um… how exactly the fuck did I miss Royal Headache the first time ‘round? Have I been sleepwalking through the last few years? Maybe. Whatever the case may be, I have now made damn sure to catch up on everything they’ve put out into the world up to this point.
 
While I had heard the name ’Royal Headache’ bandied about since their formation, I often thought I was hearing about another band entirely ( ‘Royal Blood’ – who are themselves not too shabby). I certainly wasn’t aware that the name I was hearing belonged to one of the best punk bands to emerge from this country since the heyday of The Saints.
 
Since my first exposure to the group back in August, their two near-perfect albums have been a consistent presence in my life… and I don’t see that changing anytime soon. 
 
Sadly, I don’t think I’m alone in being embarrassingly late to the Royal Headache party. If you do happen to be in the same boatthen it’s something you may need to rectify, ASAP. 
 
 
 
U.S. Girls – Half Free
 
 
 
U.S. Girls (aka Meg Remy) is another project that is already a few albums in, yet somehow only became known to me recently. Better late than never, I suppose. 
 
To me, U.S. Girls is the way pop music should (but rarely does) sound in the year 2015. It’s weird, melodic and catchy in a way that nothing else out there is at the moment. Pitchfork probably said it better than I ever could in their review of the record back in September: ‘The album sounds like your favourite golden-oldies station beamed through a pirate-radio frequency, seamlessly fusing ‘60s-vintage girl group serenades and smooth ‘70s disco into dubby panoramas and horror-movie atmospherics.’
 
 

Low Cut Connie – Hi Honey
 

 


Philadelphia band Low Cut Connie first grabbed my attention with the…uh… rather interesting cover artwork of their third album Hi Honey. Based on that alone, I just had to know what the band sounded like. I’m so damn glad my curiosity got the better of me. Here is a group that is living proof that the often argued point of Rock n’ Roll being a dead genre is complete and utter bullshit.
I have no idea if Low Cut Connie have ever made their way over to this side of the pond, but if and when they do, I will be the first in line. This is music for boozy nights in smoky bars. In other words, music that is well and truly up my alley.
 


 
Radioactivity – Silent Kill

 

 
 
Silent Kill is the second record by the previously unheard of (by me) Texas group Radioactivity, which the internet tells me consists of members of other bands that have been hanging around the garage punk scene for the better part of a decade. Like Rock N’ Roll, Punk is another genre some have stupidly proclaimed to be dead. What crap. I have lost count of the current bands doing interesting things within the consistently expanding genre of punk. Many, like Radioactivity, are offering up vital reminders of just how great and fresh the genre can be in the right hands.
 
If you are a music fan who misses the glory days of bands such as The Ramones and The Jam, then stop whinging already. Radioactivity are here to fill that horrible void in your punk-loving hearts.
 
 
 
 
To be concluded…
 

Wednesday 16 December 2015

My Favourite Albums of 2015 (Part I): Old is New Again


 
It has been another year overflowing with the kind of musical swill many of us have now sadly become accustomed to. As I write this, an unstoppable scourge of generic, over-produced trash is poisoning our airwaves. Worse still, there’s very little indication that any of the ghouls responsible will be fading into obscurity anytime soon. In fact, the horror show that is corporate mainstream music culture is now being embraced not only by the unadventurous pop-music loving masses, but also growing numbers of confused writers within the ‘alternative’ music press who have, for whatever reason, decided to give in to it all and start bowing at the altar of these ‘artists’.

But anyway, I’m getting slightly off course here. Believe it or not, it is not actually my intention to spend the length of this post bitching about the sorry state of the music industry. On the contrary, my aim is a far more positive one - to shine some much-needed light on the bands and artists who have made it possible for me to say without even the slightest amount of sarcasm that 2015 has also been a great year for music. Yes, that’s right –there is actually, at present, a metric fuck-tonne of awesome music out there – almost too much for an unmotivated sod like me to write about at any great length here.

Still, I feel it’s only fair that I dedicate at least a little bit of time to these artists and say a few words about the albums they unleashed onto those who cared to listen. And due to the number of releases I really, really dug, I feel it may be best to separate them into three very specific categories:
 
1) those successfully returning to the spotlight after insanely long hiatus’s

2) those I had no idea even existed 12 months ago

3) those on unstoppable winning streaks

For this particular post (the first of a planned three), I will focus on the older artists returning with new albums after far too long in the wilderness. What is particularly special about this group is the fact that the bands/musicians created records that demonstrated beyond the shadow of a doubt that it is actually possible to successfully return after an extended break, remain relevant and grow old gracefully. Who woulda thunk it?

Anyhoo, without further ado, here they are, in no particular order…

 

Desaparecidos - Payola

 

Okay, so Conor Oberst and co. can hardly be considered old, per se. But screw it, they’ve definitely been off the radar long enough to justify their inclusion within this particular section of the list.

Payola (the group’s second LP) had the wonderful distinction of being the record released this year that took me most by surpris,. It’s not because I didn’t expect greatness from Mr. Oberst - hell, over the course of his career he has rarely, if ever, put his name to anything that was’t worthwhile. Still, releasing an album with an old punk band that, to put things in perspective, haven’t had a record out since NSYNC were infecting the charts – didn’t exactly fill me with excitement… for whatever reason.

My slight curiosity about the whole deal, however, quickly became something much more the second I hit play that first magical time. Payola immediately announced itself as Conor’s strongest work in over a decade - a fun, timely, catchy, angry, exciting, filler-free masterpiece that, six months on, still hasn’t lost any of the charm I knew it had upon that first listen.

I have no idea what Desaparecidos are planning beyond this release.... I can only hope there are future plans, and that the space between this album and the next one is nowhere near as drawn out.

 

Faith No More – Sol Invictus

 

As surprising as the Desaparecidos release was, it was nowhere near as miraculous as the fact that, in 2015, we were given the gift of a new Faith No More record.

For close to twenty years fans like me didn’t for a second consider the idea of a new record from this legendary group even a remote possibility.  Even after a string of highly successful reunion shows in which the band seemed as though they were happy and invested, it still seemed like a far off dream. Yet, somehow, we finally got our follow up to 1997’s Album of the Year. And holy shit, was it good.

Sol Invictus achieved the impossible by not only retaining the bands ultra-unique personality, but also by bringing this personality into the present while somehow avoiding that overly nostalgic, bordering-on-stale feeling that has plagued so many bands before them.

So how did they do it? What the hell's their secret? Was it the luxury of having no record company interference? Maturity? Experience? Whatever the case may be, I hope this winning creative streak continues for these middle-aged rapscallions. After all, the world is undeniably a far better place with FNM around. 

 

Blur – The Magic Whip

 

Another band that dared to take the plunge and add another record to their so far bullet proof discography was Blur who, thankfully, were both smart and talented enough to only make a follow u that was worthy of their name.

The albums quality should’ve come as zero surprise to those who have followed Albarn’s career though out his years outside of Blur – the dude is prolific as hell and rarely releases anything that isn’t at the very least interesting.  

What was especially great about The Magic Whip was that it presented a band that was in no way interested in repeating themselves. Instead, they revealed another side of themselves to us,  one that was only interested in evolving and bettering themselves in the process. Somehow, they did it without losing that indefinable quality that made them one of the 90’s most-loved bands.

 

Dr Dre - Compton

 

Despite having an album on the boil for close to two decades, Dre’s eventual return still came as a total shock– mostly because we’d all given up on hearing anything new from him ever again.  And while the album we were all promised (Detox) never materialised, we perhaps got something better.

Compton - released just as F. Gary Grey’s Straight Outta Compton was hitting multiplexes - immediately silenced the doubters and rewarded patient fans. It was, from first song to last, a beast of a record that made it feel as though no time has passed at all since the now legendary 2001.

Like every other release on this list, Compton wasn’t the sad story of some strapped-for-cash old-timer trying to relive former glories, but rather a thrilling return to form that served as a crystal clear reminder (if one was even needed) the Dre is still in a league of his own.
It’s rare for a record to sound good enough to warrant a sixteen year gap, but Compton was just that - absolute proof that occasionally, good things come to those who wait…and wait…and wait...

 

 Refused - Freedom

 
 
Refused returned in 2015 to a somewhat mixed response. Such divisiveness wasn’t exactly a surprise - after all, if your last album was The Shape of Punk to Come, you'd probably have a difficult time pleasing absolutely everyone as well. Hell, even I wasn’t exactly an instant convert. The first single did next to nothing for me (at least upon first listen), and the bleak early reviews kept me well away for the first couple of weeks following its official release. I needn’t have worried. Freedom is the sound of a revitalised band that is still angry about… well, a lot of things. For my money, there isn’t a weak spot across its entire runtime.

Refused did the smart thing with Freedom by completely avoiding any attempts to rebottle their old sound. Instead, they made the record they wanted to make (even bringing a revered pop producer on board for a couple of tracks).

Again, not everyone agreed with my opinion on this surprisingly modern-sounding punk rock record, but at the end of the day, who cares - this post is all about me, after all.  And for me, Freedom is a total success.

 

Sleater Kinney - No Cities to Love

 

 

Last but not least, we come to Sleater Kinney.

What could I possibly add to the zillion glowing reviews and articles that have already been committed to print regarding the glorious return of this powerful trio? Not much, really. Cities to Love was as great as we all hoped it would be, while the live shows have, by all accounts, been going off (I’ll find out for myself in March). Best of all, Carrie Brownstein - kickass front woman, exceptional writer, comedic actor - has been everywhere in 2015. She can seemingly do it all.

Even though the album was released almost 12 months ago now, it has been making appearances on year end lists all over the place, which should be as good an indication as any of this records impressive quality.


To be continued …